In European countries, the demands of the small but noisy homosexual lobby are being discussed with great attention. While everyone appreciates that putting homosexual unions on the same level as traditional marriage is controversial from the moral point of view what many of us forget is that this also raises quite independent financial and policy issues for the community. Why is it that the state bestows privileges upon marriage? Not because the domestic arrangements of its citizens are inherently any of its business, but because the maintenance, formation and education of its own population in a stable emotionally and morally fulfilling environment is indispensible to the existence and prosperity of the state.

It is often said: Equality yes - adoption no. The former makes the latter impossible. The decision made last Nov. 16th by the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has called for legal recognition of same-sex partnerships and adoption opportunities for homosexuals in its 47 member nations in order to satisfy apparent needs of a certain group of persons. The wellbeing of children is not being considered. In such a context children are treated as mere commodities. Paediatrician Dr. Christl R. Vonholdt summarizes for us ten reasons against adoption rights for homosexual couples.

The exact text of the decision of the Legal Affairs Committee can be found on the website of the Council of Europe:

In the last week of January, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will vote on the report of the Legal Affairs Committee. You may want to contact your national parliament in this regard. A list of all the members can be found here:

• Every child has a right to a mother and father. In the structure of a homosexual "family", that right of the child is methodically and deliberately denied. This is a fundamental violation of the rights of a child.

• A child growing up presuming that his or her parents are two women or two men is not correctly informed about its origins in both of the sexes. This will harm the child’s development.

• Diversity is always a greater stimulus to development than equality. The last 40 years of research have consistently shown that mothers and fathers each make a distinct and indispensible contribution to the healthy development of the child. A child in a homosexual "family" is therefore at a disadvantage from the very beginning of his/her development.

• A child has the best conditions for the development of a safe, congruent gender identity, if it can grow up in the rich environment provided by the divergent genders as provided by a mother and a father. In a homosexual "family" the benefits of proper development are deliberately withheld from the child.

• If either the father or the mother are tragically lacking, such as in single parent homes, the child has the opportunity to mourn their loss and to deal with this loss constructively. If the child is taught, however, that a homosexual "family" is a complete, albeit alternative type of family, this setting prevents the child from mourning the loss of the real father or mother. The child will remain divided and this will have a destructive impact on the psychosocial development of the child.

• There are significant differences between the lifestyles of homosexual and heterosexual couples. Statistically speaking, the promiscuity of gay men living together is much higher than in a normal father-mother relationship. This has a destructive effect on the bonding needs of children.

• The vast majority of studies alleging an equality between heterosexual and homosexual parenthood, have been found to be seriously methodologically flawed. No far-reaching conclusions can be drawn from such flawed research.

• For women living as lesbians, it is notable that the majority do not have and do not desire to have a man / men in any close relationship. This has a detrimental and inhibiting effect on male identity development in boys.

• For girls, the father is the most important measure of expectation in regards to male behaviour. Studies show: Adolescent girls who have grown up without a father, have greater proximity and distance problems to peers and boys and more often become unintentionally pregnant.

If it occurs that with a full adoption, a child's birth certificate shows the names of two women or of two men, instead of one female and one male name, the child will in essence be and feel deceived by the incongruence between his knowledge of his sexual origin – from the two genders (male and female) and what his birth record states.

Christl Ruth Vonholdt is a Physician specialized in Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and is Director of the German Institute for Youth and Society (www.dijg.de). She earned her doctorate at the Medical University of Hannover.

(go online to www.europe4christ.net to download this Letter for Europe as a pdf file)